A federal judge in Virginia rescheduled the sentencing hearing for Paul Manafort, the former chairman of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, to March 7, according to a court filing on Tuesday. It was not immediately clear why the sentencing hearing was rescheduled from March 8. Manafort was convicted in August of eight charges of bank and tax fraud as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III set the date on Thursday, giving Manafort until March 1 to reply to Mueller’s recommendation that he serve between 19.6 and 24.4 years in prison. Manafort, 69, was convicted by jurors last August of bank fraud, tax fraud and failure to file a foreign bank account report. Manafort, who was President Donald Trump’s campaign chairman in 2016, also faces a March 13 sentencing in federal court in Washington.

President Emmanuel Macron has promised to punish vandals who daubed swastikas on almost 100 graves at a Jewish cemetery in eastern France just hours before nationwide rallies to denounce an “unprecedented” wave of anti-Semitic acts. "We shall act, we shall pass laws, we shall punish," Mr Macron told Jewish leaders while inspecting the 96 tombstones daubed with blue and yellow swastikas in the village of Quatzenheim, near the Alsatian city of Strasbourg. His words came before almost all of France’s political leaders were due to convene at a march in Paris against a recent surge in anti-Semitic acts, which rose 74 per cent last year. "Those who did this are not worthy of the Republic," said Mr Macron, later placing a white rose on a tombstone commemorating Jews deported to Germany during the Second World War. Another grave bore the words "Elsassisches Schwarzen Wolfe" ("Black Alsatian Wolves), a separatist group with links to neo-Nazis in the 1970s. This is the second such cemetery in the area to be vandalised since December, along with a nearby monument to Holocaust victims. Marches took place on Tuesday night across France Credit: BORIS HORVAT/AFP/Getty Images Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded a Europe-wide response to anti-Semitism and his government's immigration minister later issued a call for French Jews to 'come home'. Mr Macron was also due to pay his respects at the Paris Holocaust memorial on Tuesday ahead of the anti-racism marches, attended in Paris by the prime minister and leaders of all parties bar the far-Right National Rally, which will hold its own ceremony. France has been appalled by a series of anti-Semitic acts in recent days, culminating last weekend in a violent barrage of insults against a prominent French writer at a yellow vest protest. In the filmed incident, a man can be seen branding the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut a "dirty Zionist" and telling him "France belongs to us”. Police intervened to protect philosopher and writer Alain Finkielkraut after he was targeted by on the fringe of a yellow vest protest in central Paris on February 16, 2019 Credit: ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP While several high-profile yellow vests were due to attend the anti-hate marches, a recent Ifop poll of self-professed “gilets jaunes” found that nearly half those questioned believed in a worldwide "Zionist plot" and other conspiracy theories. "The yellow vests aren't an anti-Semitic movement," said Jean-Yves Camus of the Political Radicalisation Observatory in Paris. "But it's a leaderless, horizontal movement… and extremist elements have been able to drown out the voices of its high-profile figures in the media," he told AFP. Edouard Philippe, the prime minister, called for a “sacred union” against anti-Semitism, saying it had “very deep roots in French society”. At more than half a million, France is home to Europe’s biggest Jewish community but anti-Semitic attacks remain common. A rabbi and three children were killed at a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012 by an Islamist gunman, and in 2015 four Jews at a kosher supermarket in Paris were among 17 people killed by Islamist militants. In 2006, 23-year-old Ilan Halimi was kidnapped, tortured and murdered by an anti-Semitic gang. A tree in his memory was hacked down this month. France is reeling from a string of anti-Semitic acts Credit: BENOIT TESSIER/REUTERS In recent days, artwork on two Paris post boxes showing the image of Simone Veil, a Holocaust survivor and former magistrate, was defaced with swastikas, while a bagel shop was sprayed with the word "Juden", German for Jews, in yellow letters. National Assembly president Richard Ferrand on Tuesday denounced “an unprecedented wave of anti-Semitic acts”. Responding to the grave desecration, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “I call on all French and European leaders to take a strong stand against anti-Semitism.” His immigration minister, Yoav Galant, sent a tweet calling on French Jews to quit France and "come home" to Israel, where around 200,000 French Jews already live. France's parliament on Tuesday debated whether anti-Zionism should be classified as a form of anti-Semitism, a stance Mr Macron said he opposes.

The extradition hearing for a top Huawei executive at the center of a diplomatic row between Ottawa and Beijing was pushed back to March on Tuesday, after the US unveiled sweeping charges against her and the Chinese tech giant. Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and the daughter of its founder, was indicted along with Huawei and two affiliates in a US case related to alleged Iran sanctions violations that has inflamed tensions with China. In Meng’s first court appearance since being released, the judge moved the start of her extradition hearing to March 6, a month later than previously scheduled, in order to allow the defense time to review the evidence in the case.

Women’s March co-chair Tamika Mallory claimed during a recent interview that The View’s Meghan McCain aggressively questioned her about her ties to infamous anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan because McCain is racist. Mallory, who labeled Farrakhan the GOAT on social media after attending a speech in which he labeled Jews “satanic,” said she intended to praise the Nation of Islam leader’s past advocacy on behalf of the black community, not his virulent and frequently displayed anti-Semitism. Asked by McCain to explicitly condemn Farrakhan, Mallory refused — a decision she now attributes to McCain’s aggressive rhetorical style, which she claims was racially motivated.

Women from various political and ideological backgrounds challenged the 2019 Women’s March by marching in protest and organizing alternative rallies near the Washington, D.C. event on Saturday. The third annual Women’s March took place in Freedom Plaza, a more confined space than in years past, suggesting that organizers anticipated smaller crowds after facing allegations of anti-Semitism and defending Nation of Islam’s anti-Semitic leader Louis Farrakhan. Following the development of those controversies, conservative group Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) organized a rally across the street in the name of “all women” at the same time as the Women’s March.

Thousands of protesters have marched in Australia calling for an end to violence against women, days after the murder of an Israeli student in Melbourne. Demonstrators called for streets to be made safe for women after the body of 21-year-old Aiia Maasarwe was found in bushes near a tram stop on Wednesday. The weekend rallies — held in Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra — are part of the Women’s March campaign, first held in January 2017 in the United States and around the world.